Global Employment Relations

Statistics Links

International Labor Comparisons (U.S. DOL)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
FedStats
Portal to statistics collected and disseminated by over 100 U.S. government agencies.
LABORSTA (ILO)
A free database of labor data and metadata for over 200 countries and territories, from the International Labour Organization Dept. of Statistics.
OECD Statistics
OECD Employment Database Online
Links to OECD data tables and pdf's on employment, unemployment, union membership.
International Statistical Agencies (U.S. Census Bureau)
Links to major statistical agencies of foreign countries.
National Statistics Online--Labour (Great Britain)
Statistics Canada
Labour and other subjects listed on home page.
How to Find Labour Statistics (ILO Library)

Labor & Trade Union Membership Statistics

Trade Union Density - OECD StatExtracts
Density statistics for 33 countries (developed nations), from 1999 to 2010.
Union Members and Employees - OECD StatExtracts
To access this table, click on the title (Union Members...) in the left-hand column, under "Labour/Trade Unions". This table contains the number of active trade union members and the number of wage and salary earners. Data on union membership are broken down by source of data (administrative or survey data).
Sources of Data on Trade Union Members and Union Density
Data sources for union membership in OECD member countries.
Trade Union Membership and Collective Bargaining Coverage, Statistical Concepts, Methods and Findings (ILO Working Paper No. 59 - Social Dialogue Indicators)
See Table 1 for Union Density data for over 100 countries, dates vary from 2002 to 2009. Paper by Susan Hayter, Industrial and Employment Relations Department and Valentina Stoevska, Department of Statistics
Union Membership Statistics in 24 Countries, by Jelle Visser (MLR, Jan. 2006)
The 24 countries are all developed nations. Table 3 gives union density, Table 4 gives density by gender.
Trade union strategies to recruit new groups of workers (Eurofound)
An overview of developments in both trade union membership and density in the 27 EU Member States and Norway; study by Roberto Pedersini, Univ. of Milan.
ICTWSS: Database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts in 34 countries between1960 and 2007
created by Jelle Visser, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam. "The ICTWSS database covers four key elements of modern political economies in advanced capitalist societies: trade unionism, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts."
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"The database contains annual data for 34 countries: Australia; Austria; Belgium; Bulgaria; Canada; Cyprus; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Greece; Finland; France; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Malta; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Spain; Slovenia; Slovakia; Sweden; Switzerland; the United Kingdom; the United States; and it runs from 1960 till 2007."
ICTWSS Database, all versions.
Version 6.0 of the ICTWSS database of Jelle Visser is now available as a merged excel file, including all authors notes. The database is downloadable in stata, SPSS, and csv. Consistency checks have been carried out and are now included in this new database (Version 6.0)